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Sunday, 9 April 2017

ART SUNDAY - FRANTIŠEK ŽENÍŠEK

“I go to Prague
every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in
a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only
love, but admire.” - Ellis Peters

František Ženíšek (25 May
1849, Prague – 15 November 1916, Prague) was a Czech painter. He was part of
the “Generace českého Národního divadla” (Generation of the Czech National
Theatre), a large group of artists with nationalistic sympathies.

He was born into
a family of merchants and displayed an affinity for art at an early age.
Reluctantly his father agreed to let him pursue his interests and allowed him
to take lessons from Karel Javůrek while he was still in school. From 1863 to
1865, he was at the Academy of Fine Arts, studying with Eduard von Engerth.
After a brief stay in Vienna, assisting Engerth with work at the State Opera,
he was back at the Academy in Prague, working with Jan Swerts and the history
painter Josef Matyáš Trenkwald.

In 1875, he
received his first major commission; painting murals at the city hall in
Courtrai, Belgium. Then, in 1878, while making a study trip to Paris, he gained
an important friend and supporter in Josef Šebestián Daubek, a well-known
patron of the arts, who engaged him to decorate his home in Liteň. He later accompanied
Daubek on his honeymoon to Holland, and painted a portrait of the new couple.

Soon after
returning from Paris, he and Mikoláš Aleš won a competition to decorate the
foyer of the National Theatre with historical and allegorical designs. Ženíšek went
on to decorate the auditorium ceiling and design a curtain, although the
curtain was destroyed by a fire in 1881. He also designed windows at the church
in Karlín and lunettes at the National Museum as well as over 80 portraits.

From 1885 to
1896, he was a Professor at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, where
his assistant was Jakub Schikaneder. Then, from 1896 to 1915, he was a
Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, where his students included Jaroslav
Špillar and Jan Preisler. In 1898, he was one of the founders of “Jednota
umělců výtvarných” (Creative Artists), in an effort to strengthen the Czech
nationalist viewpoint in the arts. His son, František (1877–1935) was also a
painter of some note.

Above is his
painting, “Oldřich and Božena” of 1884. Božena (Křesinová - died after 1052)
was the second wife (and probably earlier the mistress) of Duke Oldřich of
Bohemia and mother of Bretislaus I of Bohemia. The historian Cosmas of Prague
recorded the legend of Oldřich and Božena, in his Chronica Boëmorum (“Chronicle of the Bohemians”). According to the
legend, the young (and married) Oldřich set out on a hunt and travelled to
Peruc. There, he spied a beautiful peasant girl, Božena, by a well known today
as Božena's Spring and was immediately entranced by her. Oldřich abandoned his
hunt and took Božena back to Prague, where she eventually gave birth to his
illegitimate son Bretislaus. In the legend, Oldřich's first meeting with Božena
took place in sight of the Oldřich Oak.

Božena was
indeed the saviour of the Czech House of Přemysl. Oldřich had two brothers, but
one of them, Jaromír, was castrated by the eldest sibling, Boleslaus III.
Boleslaus himself was imprisoned in Poland, possibly having only a daughter.
Thus Oldřich was the one Přemyslid able to have a son and heir. His first wife
is thought to have borne no children. Božena’s low birth is alluded to in the
chronicle of Cosmas, which states that Oldřich first met her “riding through
the village”. The illegitimate birth of her son Bretislaus to a low-born mother
is believed to have made it necessary for him to resort to abduction when he
later sought to marry a noble bride (Judith of Schweinfurt). At any rate, she
was held to be a peasant woman already by the author of the early 14th-century
Chronicle of Dalimil.

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Welcome to Nicholas V's Blog on Blogger

I have been blogging daily on this platform for several years now. It is surprising that I have persisted as the world is changing and "microblogging" is now the norm. I blog to amuse myself, make comment on current affairs, externalise some of my creativity, keep notes on things that interest me, learn something new and to surprise myself with things that I discover about this wonderful, and sometimes crazy, world we live in.

I sometimes get the impression that I am on a soapbox delivering a monologue, so your comments are welcome.